Today we’d like to introduce you to Lizeth Villanueva.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My story as the founder of Lumen & Leaf starts in 2012, when I was a college student working part-time with toddlers in high-quality Montessori childcare environments throughout the Phoenix Valley.
I remember watching one toddler calmly and intentionally move through almost two hours of different activities—from beading, to looking at books, to juicing, to choosing from other materials that had been prepared for him. He spoke clearly in full sentences, moved with purpose, and seemed so capable.
I was starstruck.
That experience made me fascinated with child development and, really, human potential. I wanted to understand what made it possible for such a young child to move through the world with that kind of confidence, concentration, independence, and purpose.
It became the beginning of more than a decade of working with children and families, primarily from birth through age six.
My experience as a mother gave me another perspective. I knew the kind of childhood and family life I wanted for my own children, but I learned that having a vision for your family and carrying that vision through everyday life are two very different things.
Young children are constantly developing, which means family life is constantly changing with them. Routines that work at one stage may no longer work six months later. There are meals, dressing, sleep, transitions, childcare, relationships, work, and all of the preparation and decisions surrounding everyday life.
At the time, I thought many of the harder parts were simply stages of parenting that I needed to push through or figure out as I went. With what I know now, I would want to experience those years differently—not because my children needed a different mother, but because I was worth supporting too.
My career eventually brought together several different ways of understanding children and families.
I completed my Bachelor of Arts in Global Studies at Arizona State University, my Association Montessori Internationale Assistants to Infancy training for birth to age three, and later my master’s degree in education with a concentration in Montessori.
I then transitioned into infant and early childhood mental health, where I work clinically with young children and their caregivers. That work expanded the way I understood behavior, relationships, emotional safety, regulation, and family context.
Each part of my life gave me something different.
Montessori made me fascinated with human potential and what very young children are capable of.
Motherhood showed me the complexity of turning a vision for your family into everyday life.
My own family showed me the power of having a village around you.
Clinical work taught me to look beneath behavior and consider the relationships, environment, and context surrounding the child.
Eventually, those experiences began to connect.
I initially developed Lumen & Leaf because I thought I wanted to help families implement Montessori at home. After several years of refining the idea, I realized I was interested in something much larger: the whole household—the child, family, home, routines, roles, relationships, and the people supporting the child, whether that is parents, grandparents, nannies, or other professionals—and whether all of those pieces are actually working together.
That became Lumen & Leaf and the field I now call Developmental Household Systems Design.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It definitely has not been a smooth road. One of the biggest challenges was figuring out how to build a career while also being the mother I wanted to be.
I was a senior at ASU in 2013 when I became pregnant with my son and made the decision to leave school. Caring for him had to come first, so I put a professional vision I had for myself aside and became a stay-at-home mom.
Ten years later, I decided to return. By then my children were eight and three.
Going back was about much more than finishing a degree. It felt like a second chance to pursue the professional life I had once imagined for myself, but I was returning as a different person. I now had years of experience as a mother and Montessori childcare professional, and I wanted to make meaningful use of that experience.
Finishing my bachelor’s degree, completing my Montessori training, pursuing my master’s degree, raising my children, and building a career taught me very quickly that determination alone is not enough.
I had a strong support system, and I could not have done it without my family and friends.
It required communication, coordination, partnership, flexibility, and people who were willing to step in when I needed them.
For a long time, I think I carried some version of the idea that I could “have it all” if I just worked hard enough and became capable enough to manage everything well.
What I learned was something very different.
It really takes a village to raise a child, and parents need that village too.
That experience changed the way I think about success. I stopped seeing support as something separate from being capable and started seeing it as part of how families actually grow, function, and make room for the people within them to keep developing too.
No parent should have to do it alone.
As you know, we’re big fans of Lumen & Leaf. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Lumen & Leaf provides Developmental Household Systems Design for families from pregnancy through age three through my signature service, Prepared Home Transformation.
The problem I am working on is not a lack of parenting information.
A family can have loving and capable parents, a clear vision for how they want to raise their children, supportive family members, a wonderful nanny, quality childcare, developmental products, and trusted professionals—and still find that all of those pieces do not automatically work together in everyday family life.
That is the gap Lumen & Leaf addresses.
I look at the household as a developmental system: the home, the people within it, the routines they move through, the roles everyone carries, the relationships surrounding the child, and the developmental needs that are continually changing.
A household might be two parents preparing their home for their first baby. It might be a family navigating toddler routines and growing independence. Or it might be a private household where parents, a nanny, grandparents, a newborn care specialist, household manager, therapist, or other professionals are all contributing to the child’s care.
The more people and moving parts surrounding a young child, the more important it becomes for the household to have a shared developmental foundation.
Through the Prepared Home Method™, I work across five phases: Observation, Orientation, Transformation, Implementation, and Integration.
The work is organized through three connected environments.
The home environment includes the physical space, materials, access, organization, sensory conditions, and how everyday routines are supported.
The human environment includes the people and roles surrounding the child—parents, siblings, grandparents, nannies, caregivers, household staff, and others involved in family life.
The psychological environment is how the home is experienced emotionally and relationally, including safety, connection, trust, expectations, regulation, and belonging.
What sets my approach apart is that I don’t treat those pieces as separate problems.
If getting dressed every morning has become difficult, for example, I don’t immediately ask, “How do we get the toddler to cooperate?”
I want to know: What can this child developmentally do? What can they access independently? What does the routine require? What is the parent doing in real time to hold the routine together? Are the adults working from the same expectations? Does the environment help show the child what happens next?
In other words:
Where is the work living right now?
Sometimes the parent is carrying work the environment could carry. Sometimes a child is being asked to carry a developmental expectation they are not ready for. Sometimes two capable caregivers are working from different systems. Sometimes the routine itself needs to change.
This becomes especially important in households where several adults contribute to a child’s care.
A wonderful nanny, involved parents, grandparents, and other professionals can each bring tremendous value, but good people do not automatically create a coordinated household system. Lumen & Leaf can help establish a shared developmental understanding across the people, routines, environment, and expectations surrounding the child—without expecting every caregiver to do everything exactly the same way.
That is why my work is not about creating an idealized home or teaching parents how to parent.
I begin with the family—their vision, values, culture, strengths, relationships, existing support, and the stage of development they are actually living through. Then we look at how the household can better support that life.
The village is an important part of this approach.
Lumen & Leaf exists to align, strengthen, and add to the village surrounding a young child so the child and family can be elevated together.
That village may include extended family, nannies, newborn care specialists, doulas, therapists, Montessori professionals, developmental providers, household managers, family assistants, or other trusted supports.
Lumen & Leaf does not need to become every form of support a family needs. Part of good service is recognizing what belongs to my role and when another person should be added to the family’s village.
That is why I am also building relationships with referral partners, including nanny and household staffing agencies and professionals already serving young families.
I want professionals to think of Lumen & Leaf when the people supporting a child are individually strong, but the household as a whole needs greater alignment around routines, caregiver roles, developmental expectations, the home environment, or a major transition such as preparing for a baby or bringing a new nanny into the household.
Supporting a young child’s development is also an investment in the parents, relationships, household, and community surrounding that child.
That is probably what I am most proud of brand-wise. Lumen & Leaf has grown far beyond the Montessori-at-home service I initially imagined. It now brings together my experience as a mother, educator, clinician, and someone who believes deeply in human potential and in the importance of family.
Lumen & Leaf is currently in its founding pilot phase. Before the broader launch, I am looking for four pilot families at different developmental stages:
one family expecting a baby
one family in the crawling/weaning stage
one family in early toddlerhood
one family in later toddlerhood
These families will receive services at a special pilot price while I continue testing and refining the Prepared Home Method™ across the developmental range I plan to serve.
I’m also interested in connecting with referral partners who share a commitment to children and families and want to be part of a stronger, more connected village around them.
What’s next?
My immediate goal is to complete the founding pilots, learn from those families, continue refining the Prepared Home Method™, strengthen my referral network, and then officially launch Lumen & Leaf.
Beyond private family services, I am especially looking forward to developing workshops and lectures for parents and professionals.
There are conversations I would love to explore around pregnancy through age three, developmental changes, family life, the home, participation, caregivers, adult roles, and the many everyday experiences through which young children develop.
I’m currently collecting questions for a future Q&A page and asking parents and professionals what they would actually want to hear discussed in a workshop or lecture.
That is important to me because I don’t want to build educational offerings around what I assume people need. I want them to come from real questions, experiences, and conversations.
I am also very interested in how this work can support the professionals already inside private households. Nannies, newborn care specialists, family assistants, household managers, doulas, educators, and other professionals often have an intimate view of family routines and a child’s everyday development. I see an opportunity for education and collaboration that helps those professionals participate in a shared developmental understanding of the household while respecting the distinct role each person holds.
Longer term, I would also like to develop a formal training pathway for Developmental Home Consultants in the Prepared Home Method™.
That is important to me because I want this work to grow beyond what I can personally provide. My hope is to eventually train other qualified consultants to understand the developmental household as a whole and apply the method in a way that is thoughtful, ethical, and grounded in each family’s own values.
For me, that is part of building Developmental Household Systems Design into something larger than a single practice. I want Lumen & Leaf to contribute not only direct services for families, but also parent education, professional education, stronger collaboration across the village, and eventually a professional framework that other people can learn and carry forward.
The stronger and more aligned the village is around the family, the more we can offer both children and parents.
Lumen & Leaf is currently offering a special pilot price during the founding pilot phase of the Prepared Home Method™.
Four pilot openings are currently available across the developmental stages Lumen & Leaf serves.
Pilot pricing and availability will end before the broader launch.
Interested families can contact Lumen & Leaf directly for current pilot details.
Contact Info:
- Website: lumenandleafstudio.com
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